Big Mountains…Big Crowds

Hey folks! Sorry it’s been so long. We finished our trip in the Dolomites several days ago, but it took me a while to go through the 1500 or so photos I took, so…if you’re here for (way too many) photos of stunning mountain landscapes, you’re in the right place. But, let me back up a bit…

We spent the last couple of weeks of August trekking around the Dolomites, a unique section of the Alps in northeastern Italy. There were some similarities to the hiking we did in the Valle d’Aosta in the northeast, but also some significant differences. In fact, Jess and I spent a lot of our hiking time comparing our experiences in the Dolomites to hiking in various other places, so — just a warning — be prepared for me to babble a lot about mountains.

We started our trip in Bolzano, a small city on the western edge of the Dolomites. Our hotel was conveniently literally across the street from the train station and was willing to hold half our luggage for 12 days while we trekked around the mountains. (We returned at the end and stayed another night before heading north to Germany.) The Dolomites cover a pretty extensive area, but the most famous part is the north-south “Alta Via Uno” trek through the center of the mountains. We, instead, headed on a more east-west trajectory, overlapping with the Alta Via Uno for just a few days (interestingly, the only part of the trek where we ran into other folks from the U.S.). Along the way we used a couple of buses and one cable car to piece together some of the different sections of the mountains we wanted to visit. An aside: the best bus driver took us on a narrow, winding, lane-and-a-half-wide road with a ton of construction and a lot of traffic from Passo Sella to La Selva di Val Gardena. What made him so great? Well, first of all, he handled that bus like it was another limb of his body–smooth and in total control, even around hairpin turns–but, more importantly, he cursed out nearly every driver who got in his way with a steady stream of Italian insults. (I tried to video it eventually, but I was too late and only caught him calling a few of them “boracho,” drunk.)

One of the bigger differences between the Dolomites and our other experiences hiking in the Alps (Valle d’Aosta and also Switzerland a few years ago) was that the trails in the Dolomites pass through far fewer areas where normal folks actually live. A few of the rifugios we visited were near a handful of other houses, and the valleys between the mountains are full of charming towns, but there were just less people actually living in the mountains than we expected. But, don’t worry, there were still plenty of sheep and cows. For example, here’s the noise the sheep made outside the first rifugio we visited, Alpe di Tires.

We also experienced similar, but much louder, noise when our room at Rifugio Sennes was visited by a handful of cows at 1:00am a few nights later. I won’t share the sound, but it looked something like this…

Probably the funniest thing we ran across in terms of “normal people living in the mountains” was an automatic lawnmower in someone’s yard just as we were leaving the edge of town on our first day out. Not only had I never seen one before, but this one had gone a bit astray and was trying to mow gravel.

Nevertheless, while there weren’t a ton of people “living” in the high country, there were a ton of people there. I mean a ton. Over the course of our trip, we were in full-on hiking mode for ten days, and there were only two brief segments — when we intentionally went out of our way to go on a less popular trail — when there weren’t people just all over the place. This was very different from the Valle d’Aosta, where we had several days where we were able to count the other hikers we saw on one hand, and a far cry from our normal experiences backpacking in the Sierra Nevada or elsewhere in the U.S. Why was it so different?

THE HUT SCENE. The Rifugios in the Dolomites are incredibly different than most of the ones we stayed at in the Valle d’Aosta or in the Swiss Alps. Most of the rifugios, beyond just providing places to sleep and get a basic meal, are more like full-on restaurants and bars. Many of them are about a two-to-three hour hike from the nearest parking lot, bus stop, or cable car (and many have their own parking lots or are right at the top of a cable car route), so hordes of people swarm them from about 11am to 3pm every day. We often timed our hikes so we’d stop at one hut for lunch and then usually arrived at our destination around 2ish, often having to wait a couple of hours for the staff to be free enough to check us into our rooms. Of course, that just gave us the opportunity to hang out, have a cocktail, and play a game or two of “That’s Pretty Clever” or “Twice as Clever” (the dice games we brought with us).

So, the photos below will give you a sense of the scene at some of the huts. A few of my favorite bits here…

• Some great food. I really enjoyed some of the local dumplings, usually in brothy soups, and discovered the awesome kaisershmarren–a kinda thick crepe served with powdered sugar and jam. The food in the huts here regularly surpassed anything we had in the Valle d’Aosta.
• Kid-friendly spaces abounded. The huts want to make parents stay and drink, so that means trampolines and swings for kids.
• We hypothesized about how some of the further out rifugios got food until one day we saw a delivery tractor going along a ridiculously steep and rocky trail (and eventually along a rickety wooden walkway over a chasm). Some also used horses and helicopters, but many of the most popular ones have dirt roads that rifugio empolyees can drive on to get there.
• Some of the worst crowds we encountered were around Lago di Braies (where there’s a super-fancy hotel). But, we passed by there quickly, so we survived. Worse than that was our second day out, when we hiked along the Friedrich August Trail in the opposite direction of the hundreds of people who were just out for the day. We literally had to wait by the side of the trail for three or four minutes at a time to let the hordes pass before we could scamper through a quick section before the next wave of hikers arrived. The trail was narrow and the crowds were large. You can see a bit of that in the photo I have of Rifugio Sandro Pettini (halfway along the trail).
• Above all, while I wasn’t a fan of the crowds, I really did love that so many Italian/Austrian/German/etc. folks really seem to enjoy getting out into the mountains. And the fact that the rifugios make that fun and accessible is kinda cool.

Day 1: Our first day was a straight up climb. We started near the town of Tires and climbed to one of the fanciest rifugios we stayed at the whole time, Alpe di Tires. It was a gorgeous climb and got pretty tough at the end, with cables bolted into the rock to aid us. Overall, we went up about 1400 meters. My tracking app didn’t record any downhill except for the fact that I ran up an extra ten minutes to get to a pass and then came back down to where Jess was waiting. Might be the most pure uphill day I’ve ever had. Gorgeous, though, and a good introduction to the crazy steep walls and sharp peaks that are common in the Dolomites.

Day 2: Other than fighting the crowds between Alpe di Tires and Rifugio Friedrich August (see above), this was probably the easiest hiking day of the trip. It was a rolling up and down along the hillside, staying above the villages in the valley below, but below the looming Sassolungo Group. For most of the day we could see all the way back to Alpe di Tires.

Day 3: After a beautiful morning at Friedrich August, we made our way twenty minutes downhill to Passo Sella, from which we caught a bus to La Selva di Val Gardena, a super-fancy mountain town, conveniently with a grocery store so we could resupply our lunch and snack stash. From there, we headed into Val Langental, a gorgeous grassy valley surrounded by thousand-meter-high cliffs. It was, in some ways, verys reminiscent of Yosemite Valley. And, in fact, while the Dolomites are quite different than the Sierra Nevada, they both are clearly glacially-shaped, and many of the patterns I’ve seen in rocks in the Sierras were repeated here (domes, peeled off layers, etc.). This was another almost purely uphill day, but it was also one of the most beautiful, both weather- and view-wise, of the whole trip. The views up from the valley were amazing, and the views back down equally so. We spent the night at Puez Hut, which was the furthest off the beaten path. It had a fair-size lunch crowd, but even those were pretty strong hikers.

Day 4: We started with a quick side trip out to a great viewpoint near Puez Hut (with flags and a helicopter pad) before going off on a rarely-used trail over the top of the mountain and down to the next valley. This was wonderful for a bit, as we enjoyed the solid rocky top of the mountain and didn’t see another hiker for several hours. However, as we descended, we entered a rubble-filled canyon and also ended up in the middle of a cloud for a few hours. Sadly, this might have been our best hike for long-distance views, but the clouds didn’t really agree with us that day. After dropping into the town of La Villa, we ended the day with a bus trip and then a crazy cable car ride up to Rifugio Lagazuoi. Lagazuoi is one of the higher-altitude huts, and so we were trapped right in the middle of a cloud. It stormed for quite awhile, but we did have about a ten minute break where we got a brief view of the landscape from on high…

Day 5: Sadly, as we set out on a section of the Alta Via Uno, the clouds remained in the morning and took until about noon to lift much. By then, we were in the midst of one of the longest series of switchbacks I’ve ascended–kind of a trail-engineering marvel really, considering the giant pile of scree the trail was climbing. You’ll also note when you see the photos, that the canyon walls and the steep switchbacks there made my GPS completely fail. Oh well. On the other end of the pass, we descended over the next few hours to the gorgeous Fanes Valley, where we stayed at the peaceful Rifugio Lavarella. But, the photos from this day also seem like a good place to explain one of the downsides of hiking in the Dolomites: limestone. You see, while the glacial forces that shaped the mountains clearly relate to those that shaped the Sierras, the Sierras are made of granite. The Dolomites, on the other hand, are limestone. This means they crumble like crazy. So, while the peaks are stunning, most of them are surrounded by enormous piles of rubble, scree, gravel, or whatever you want to call it. This also means that for much of our time, we were walking on scree slopes, gravel roads, or other places with tricky loose-rock footing. I’m not sure this negates the amazing views and wonderful huts along the way, but it did make some of the hiking take a bit more concentration than usual.

Day 6: From Lavarella, we headed out of the Fanes Valley down to the Pederu Hut. This place was a zoo, as it was one of the most acessible huts with a paved road, a giant parking lot, and a bus stop. Most of the crowds were heading to Fanes, which we had just left, but more kept arriving. We quickly escaped by climbing a giant series of switchbacks up a cliff. We briefly left the Alta Via Uno to visit the gorgeous valley around Rifugio Fodora Vedla before heading up to Rifugio Sennes where we spent the next two nights. One of the odd features at Sennes is a giant flat grassy area outside, which it turns out was an old military air strip. (See the above hut section to learn of its mysterious properties.) Overall, there were some great spots on this day, but it wasn’t the most photogenic section. I do, though, appreciate the Fanes Valley for helping me show you how the limestone layers have been stripped away over the millenia…

Day 7: Lago di Braies to Sennes is often the first leg of people’s hike on the Alta Via Uno. Due to the ridiculous cost of staying at the Hotel Lago di Braies, we opted for a crazy long hike instead. We climbed to a pass above the lake and then descended about a thousand meters to reach the height of day-tripper crowds around the beautiful glacial-melt-colored Lago di Braies. On the way down we ran into a ton of people hiking up to Sennes and kept telling them, “See you tonight,” which mostly seemed to confuse them. But, we did, in fact, see many of them later, and had a nice long chat with a couple from the Netherlands who plan to take a sabbatical to build themselves a new home. After fighting through the crowds at the lake and grabbing the last table at the crowded Grunwaldalm (a restaurant-only hut half a mile up from the lake), we made a long loop back to Sennes by climbing a trail through the forest and over a rubble-strewn pass. Along the way we saw only one other hiker who spoke no English, but seemed concerned that we were lost after I tried to ask where he was coming from. Polite conversation fail. When we finally reached the top, we were greeted by a lovely grassy valley and a gentle return to Sennes. (Also featured below: a marmot! Just one of the many we saw and heard, but the only one I got close enough to to get a decent photo of.)

Day 8: Out least well-planned day turned out to be pretty lovely. We had two rough ideas of verrrry long routes to get to the hotel (not a hut!) we had booked this night. We decided to take the way with more “escape routes” because rain was predicted for the afternoon (it never came). Along the way we wandered through gorgeous valleys, over a couple of passes, through the woods, and generally all over the place. We failed to find a trail we wanted to take, took another way around, and eventually found the spot we wanted to come out. We met some curious butterflies at lunch and a scaredy-cat poisonous snake in the afternoon before finally arriving at our hotel, Drei Zinnenblick (or “three peak view” because of it’s view of the “three peaks” or “Tre Cime” in Italian–one of the most famous sites in the Dolomites).

Day 9: For the last segment of our hike, we spent two days circling the Tre Cime. Our route up had a number of hikers, but wasn’t too crazy until we reached the area near Rifugio Locatelli, one of a series of huts surrounding the base of these three massive towers. Despite the crowds, we enjoyed watching a pair of tiny black dots work their way slowly up and across the face of Cima Grande, the large central peak, but had to leave our view long before those two climbers had made much progress. After passing Locatelli, we descended into a mad wilderness of rocks, crossing the Pian di Cengia, and descending to Rifugio Comici, an out-of-the-way hut with great access to climbing territory (and thus a younger, more outdoorsy crowd). As an aside, Rif. Comici was named after a famous Italian climber. But, it’s also called Zsigmondyhutte in German, after an Austrian explorer. This was actually pretty common. Some of the huts had the same name in both Italian and German, but many had wildly different name (such as Rifugio Biella and Seekofelhutte). And, to add to that, many places in the area actually had three names, because Ladin (a lesser-known Romance language) is a third common language in the area. All in all, names were confusing. But, the views on this day were stunning, so I guess that makes up for it…

Day 10: Our last day was sadly completely cloudy. It made for some cool moments when the mists parted, but largely clocked our views. We circled around the south side of the Tre Cime, but could only see the base of the peaks. We left the crowds quickly, and after missing one bus by mere seconds, we eventually took a ride down the mountain to the beautiful Lago di Misurina and then into the gorgeous ritzy ski town of Cortina d’Ampezzo (site of the 2026 Olympics).

To return for a second to the question of language, I realize I skipped one important recurring theme of our hike through the Dolomites: World War I. It turns out that this area, South Tyrol, used to be part of the Austrian Empire. In WWI, Italy invaded, took control of Cortina, and the Austrian and Italian troops quickly began to dig up the sides of the mountains to create the Dolomites’ version of trenches. From the moment we hit Lagazuoi on, the mountains were dotted with man-made caves that had been gun emplacements, barracks, and transport tunnels. The area around the Mt. Lagazuoi was actually an “open air museum” with tons of trails to preserved tunnels and such used in the war. But, because of the rain and the clouds, we only saw a few that were right along our path. Nevertheless, we continued to see similar sights all over the mountains, along with WWI cemetaries and memorials. On our last day, our guide (wait…why did we have a guide? see below…) came across an old WWI bullet clip and a piece of an exploded mortar as we descended a scree slope.

One of the other major remenants of the war are the via ferrata. These were a series of cables, ladders, and the like that were used by the two sides to move troops up, down, and across the steep mountain faces. Many of the WWI via ferrata have been restored and updated, and many more have been constructed throughout the Dolomites and elsewhere in the Alps. We were excited to try one, but didn’t want to do only the easiest routes, so we opted to hire a guide to take us on a more difficult one. Pierro was excellent. He provided the necessary safety gear as well as some insights on the landscape, WWI, and via ferrata construction (he was part of the team that restored and updated the Punta Anna route we climbed). He was also a handy guy to have around, as his other job is working on a wilderness rescue squad. The Punta Anna Via Ferrata was both challenging and fun. It combined the best of hiking, rock scrambling, and even let us use a bit of our climbing knowledge (though it’s been a year and a half since we went to the gym–damn COVID!). We climbed a knife-edge ridge about 500 meters up, with constant views all over the area around Cortina.

Here’s a 360 view from the top of our climb (please forgive my heavy breathing!).

After reaching the top, we descended by glissading down an enormous scree slope to rejoin a trail down to Pierro’s car. It took Jess a few minutes and some coaching to figure out how to do it, but it was a pretty fun way to get down quickly.

OK. That’s probably enough of me babbling about mountains. Sorry if this one was too long, too photo-heavy, or too lacking in cultural nuance. I just can’t help myself. It was so gorgeous! All I want to think about is how amazing that was. Anyhow, we’ve been enjoying Munich (and Jess has been doing some serious work) for the last few days and now we’re off for a walk through the Bavarian countryside. More on all that in a bit. Until then, stay well my friends…